‘I don’t understand.’ Jack is the only one who will talk to us. ‘We tried to leap on our own and holding hands but we got ill ill. They made us run round and round and round and round and round the field then go in the lab and spit in bowls. Then injected us for our blood. Then they gave us any food we wanted. I had chocolate cake. Are you robots?’

‘No, we’re Leaplings.’

Lola steps forwards, twiddling her long brown plait. ‘They were nice to us at first. They let us play computer games. Said they’d contact our parents to say we were OK when our phones didn’t work. Said it was like being on holiday.’

‘But they lied.’ Jack again. ‘We started getting headaches from the games. I think they were designed to make us to make us confused. Then they brought us down here to work the machines. There were no clocks and our phones didn’t work so we didn’t know what the time was. We only stopped when the robots brought us food. Have you come to give us food?’

GMT shakes her head slowly. ‘Le Temps wanted their DNA and their silence. He couldn’t let them escape to tell the world. He used them to do what robots do. Run the machines.’

We look around the factory, then back at the Leaplings. They don’t know what to do with the machines switched off. Some of them seem to have forgotten how to speak. I don’t think stealing your DNA would take away your voice but I have lots of questions that come out in a string before I can stop them.

‘Did all of you try to leap solo? When you got ill, did you vomit? Have you seen the sheap?’

MC2 coughs. ‘Forget Genetic Switch; Glitch is the problem. Le Temps deliberately chose 2100 so leaps would stay put. It’s not a leap year, remember. Much much harder to leap unless you got The Gift in spades. Impossible to leap if your brain’s mixed. You seen Kwesi?’

They all shake their heads.

‘We have to find Noon,’ I say.

‘I’m hungry,’ says Jack. ‘Have you come to give us food?’

I think about going to the woods to pick mushrooms. Season taught me which ones are OK to eat and which ones will kill you. Big Ben rummages in his bag and takes out a bread roll. I squint my eyes at it. It can’t possibly be. It IS.

‘Don’t eat it!’ I shout and everyone looks at me.

‘It’s evidence.’ MC2 smiles. ‘Elle. Tell Leaps about the sheap.’

Some of us want to leap and some of us want to seek. The seekers win.

‘No one’s going nowhere till we find Kwesi.’